When shopping online (e.g., at e-commerce web sites such as Amazon®), customers often add items to an online shopping cart and then terminate their shopping session without purchasing those items. By terminating a shopping session without purchasing items held in an online shopping cart, a customer has abandoned the online shopping cart. It is estimated that a significant number of consumers abandon shopping carts after conducting an online shopping session. Further, the items left in these abandoned shopping carts represent large revenues for businesses with online stores, if the items are purchased.
Consequently, online stores target marketing content to customers with abandoned online shopping carts to convince them to return and purchase items left in the abandoned carts. However, merely sending a reminder email that states, “You have unpurchased products in your cart”, can lead to brand irritation and potentially lost customers. Accordingly, conventional techniques for marketing to online store customers fail to convince many to return and purchase items abandoned during shopping sessions.